The Princess Alice Disaster

from:- The Records of the Woolwich District

by W. T. Vincent (1835-1920)

The Greatest Affliction of the Age.—No calamity
which has afflicted the generation to which we belong can compare with
the loss of the " Princess Alice " pleasure steamboat, and the six hundred
lives sacrificed at the close of a summer-like day in the autumn of 1878
The fearful suddenness of the catastrophe and the social condition of many
of the victims, the awful proportions of the death-roll, and the new peril
which seemed to come home to all the thousands who were wont to travel
by water—all contributed to the horror of an event which shook Great Britain
like an earthquake, and sent a shudder vibrating through the world.

When the Furies planned this dire misfortune why should they have
laid the scene at Woolwich? Were we not sufficiently notorious for deeds
of evil—murders, explosions, fires, floods, fogs, wrecks, and riots, not
to speak of a reputation founded and established on the fiendish trade
of war? Most of our visitations we could have accepted as natural consequences
of a risky profession and unholy commerce, but there was nothing in the
nature of Woolwich any more than in any other part of the river Thames,
and no special predominance even in sin over many other large towns, to
justify the sorrow and stain cast upon it by the most overwhelming calamity
the nation has seen in all the years which we call our time.

Looking back through the seasons that have since passed we recall
rebellious murmurs such as these, amid the toil and suffering of that great
trial, and there scorns still a strange fatality about it which we can
only set down to the unsatisfactory explanation, which has often had to
answer for a better reason, that "Woolwich is always remarkable for remarkable
things."

Collision between the "Bywell Castle" and the "Princess
Alice," Sept. 3 1878.

The "Princess Alice" Sunk.— Tuesday, the 3rd
day of September, 1878, had been sultry, and the evening was warm and
"muggy." Weary with a troublesome days work I was preparing for an early
rest when a message came that there had been a collision on the river,
and that a big steamer had gone down with an untold freight of precious
lives. Casting off fatigue with my slippers, I made all haste to reach
Roff's Pier, enquiring of such acquaintances as I chanced to meet, a few
of whom had heard "something" of a wreck on the river, others who had I
heard nothing, and laughed at the "old woman's tale." Too soon the matchless
horror was revealed.

On the wharf and pier a small crowd had collected, not more than
fifty as yet, and among them were several well—known townsmen who, from
that moment to the end of the long and heavy strain, devoted themselves
day and night without pause, without thanks, and without reward, to do
all that was in the power of humanity, if not to lessen the evil, at least
to fulfil its sacred obligations, to bear a share of it burdens, and to
bring lasting honour and renown for its humanity and public spirit upon
the town of Woolwich.

The crowd at the Steamboat Offices, Roff's Pier.

Ghastly Sights.—Soon policemen and watermen
were seen by the feeble light bearing ghastly objects into the offices
of the Steampacket Company, for a boat had just arrived with the first
consignment of the dead, mostly little children whose light bodies and
ample drapery had kept them afloat even while they were smothered in the
festering Thames. I followed into the steamboat office, marvelling at the
fate which had brought the earliest harvest of victims to the headquarters
of the doomed ship, and, entering the board-room, the first of the martyrs
was pointed out to me as one of the company's own servants, a man employed
on the "Princess Alice," and brought here thus soon to attest by his silent
presence the ships identity. The lifeless frames of men and women lay about,
and out on the balcony, from which the directors had so often looked upon
their fleet through the fragrant smoke of the evening cigar, there was
a sight to wring out tears of blood from the eyes of any beholder. A row
of little innocents, plump and pretty, well-dressed children, all dead
and cold, some with life's ruddy tinge still in their cheeks and lips,
the lips from which the merry prattle had gone for ever.

Lovely in death the beauteous ruins lay;
Far lovelier! Pity swells the tide of love.

Callous as one may grow from frequent contact with terrors and afflictions,
one could never be inured to this. It was a spectacle to move the most
hardened official and dwell for ever in his dreams.
Then to think what was beyond out there in the river.
It was madness!

The Newspapers. —The forgoing statement represents
the first impressions derived from such hasty and excited narratives as
a reporter could gather among the wailing and turmoil, and it is to the
credit of my informants that there was very little written down which 1
have since wished to amend.

Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news
Hath but a losing office; and his tongue
Sounds ever after as a sullen bell
Remembered knolling a departed friend.

The loss of life was nearly six hundred instead of five hundred as
conjectured, conjectured without any certain evidence of the number on
board, and I was told that the Alice was struck on the starboard,
not the port side, but there was little else to correct, little else to
reveal. The gloom and misery and despair of the next day and the days which
followed, who can describe? The newspapers of course were full of minute
details on every possible phase of the frightful theme. Some of the editors
had been telegraphing to me all through the wretched night to "keep on
wiring," and the first train down in the morning brought an army of reporters.
One "daily" alone had nine special correspondents at work in Woolwich for
the best part of a week, so eager was the public appetite to feed upon
the caviare news.

Seekers for the Dead.—Crowds of others beside
the pressmen also flocked hither, mostly mere curiosity-seekers, but among
them anxious and agonized friends vainly seeking those whom they had lost.
It was more dreadful to see these survivors than to look upon the dead.
In the next fortnight we were familiar with the sight of strangers, generally
in couples, walking with dazed and melancholy aspect through streets, waiting
for their dead to be brought on shore; and every day we saw the same sad
faces as they passed down the dread array of corpses in the Dockyard, looked
for the loved ones, who would see them never more on earth.

The Funerals.—It was fortunate that there was
a large place like the Dockyard available to meet the emergency, and the
authorities not only granted its use, but sent down large parties of soldiers
to render help. As soon as a body was identified it was coffined and promptly
buried, and long processions of army waggons bearing the dead to the cemetery
were seen day after day. One of the latest of the bodies recovered was
that of Mr. Frederick Whomes, the talented organist of the Dockyard Church,
who, being a well-known Woolwich man, was followed to the grave by thousands
of the townspeople.

The Inquest

The Inquest.—The inquest was held in the Board
room at the Town hail, before Mr. C. J. Carttar, coroner, and occupied
more than thirty days. The identification evidence alone took up much time,
and was of a very melancholy character. Most of the witnesses were persons
well-to-do in life, and many of them told one after another of whole families
lost, with here and there a husband and father left mourning alone, his
household robbed of all the rest—

All, all the pretty chickens and their dam
At one fell swoop.

The testimony as to the accident was as conflicting as such testimony
usually is, but every one who was thought capable of shedding a ray of
light upon the case was called before the jury.

Diverse Verdicts.—At the end Mr. C. J. Carttar
made a long and lucid summing up, and the magnitude of the disaster affected
even the deliberations of the jury, who sat from seven at night until five
in the morning before they could agree upon a verdict. I have a sheet of
foolscap on which the scribe of the jury drafted a dozen or more verdicts
before his terms could satisfy even a majority, but it concludes with the
decision which fifteen out of the nineteen jurors consented at last to
sign, and this was a verdict against the Princess Alice. However,
another jury at Millwall had also gone into the facts and found that the
blame was due to the Bywell Castle, and, four days prior to the
Woolwich verdict, a legal opinion had been given in the Admiralty Court
against both the Princess Alice and the Bywell Castle, so
that the net result was of very questionable value.

Scene of the Wreck of the "Princess Alice" (from the
North)

The Number of Dead. —The Princess Alice Memorial
in Woolwich cemetery was erected by a sixpenny subscription throughout
the kingdom. The inscription states with sufficient accuracy that the victims
numbered 550. As nearly as I have been able to ascertain, and I have endeavoured
to make this record precise, there were 544 inquests at Woolwich, and 46
elsewhere, making the total 590. Some of the dead may have been washed
out to sea and never recovered, but this is not probable. Woolwich spent
£1,380 in recovering and burying the dead, and the county justices,
who had always previously paid such expenses, repudiated the charge and
escaped by a quibble.’ The Treasury voted £100 towards the bill,
and the ratepayers paid the rest.

Memorial Cross.—The memorial just mentioned
consists of a handsome ornamental marble cross of the Irish order, and
the base has an inscription which says

"It was computed that seven hundred men, women, and children were on
board. Of these about five hundred and fifty were drowned. One hundred
and twenty were buried near this place."

On another face of the pedestal it is stated that the memorial
was—

"Erected by a national sixpenny subscription, to which more than twenty-three
thousand persons contributed."

The Graves.—The subscription
was organized and conducted by the Rector of Woolwich, the Hon. and Rev.
A. Anson, afterwards Bishop. The graves of the victims lie in four rows
to the north of the memorial cross, and have diminutive head-stones. Many
of these when first set up were without names, those of the deceased not
recognized being indicated by some word and number, such as "Barking, 7,"
or "Erith, 12, " a similar record being kept with their clothing; but all
except a dozenor so were ultimately identified.

Captain Grinstead.—Quite adjacent is the grave
of the captain of the Princess Alice and his relatives who were
drowned on the same fatal occasion